Transcending Judgements, Spacious Peace | Parshat Shoftim

Learn about how the mind creates our experience of Reality, and how to transcend the mind into the spacious peace of awareness. Talk and piano improvisation by Rabbi Brian Yosef Schachter-Brooks, on Torah portion Parshat Shoftim.

Transcript

Once,

There was a rabbi who wanted to build a yeshiva,

An institution for Jewish learning.

After many years of planning and raising funds,

His vision was finally realized.

The new Torah school was built in the beautiful countryside,

On the bank of a river.

Many young people came to live and learn,

And the rabbi was gratified to see his goal and passion manifested.

On days with good weather,

He would often go outside with students to the river's edge in Daven Mincha,

Pray the afternoon prayer.

One day,

While they were all outside praying,

He noticed that the building across the river,

Which seemed to have been abandoned,

Was being renovated and readied for something.

Day after day,

He watched as workers came and refurbished the old building,

And he could see that there seemed to be a woman in charge of the enterprise because she was there every day,

Busily involved with whatever was going on.

Eventually the building seemed to open for business because he saw men coming and going at all hours of the day and night.

He wondered what could be going on over there.

Then he found out.

The new business was a brothel,

And the woman he had seen was the head of the brothel.

He was so upset.

His Torah school was right across from a brothel.

How terrible.

He feared that his boys would be tempted into going over there.

He was angry that his holy place was being contaminated with such sinfulness,

And he was filled with scorn for that woman who was responsible.

Nevertheless,

He refused to change his practice of bringing the students out to Davin by the river.

It was spring,

And the weather had just turned pleasant.

One time,

While they were all praying,

He noticed that the woman was also outside by the river.

He glared at her,

And he saw her looking back at him.

He was filled with rage and cursed her in his heart.

This became a pattern.

Every day during those pleasant months,

The rabbi and the students would go out to Davin,

And every day he would see the woman.

He would try to ignore her,

But he was driven by his anger to look at her,

And every time he did,

He saw her looking back at him.

Soon after,

It happened that the rabbi had a heart attack and died.

When he came to Olam Haba,

The world to come,

He was told that he would not be able to enter right away,

But would have to spend some time in Gehinnom,

To cleanse himself from the spiritual impurities caused by all his anger and cursing the brothel owner.

So he descended into Gehinnom.

After what felt like an eternity of torment,

He was finally cleansed,

And was then allowed to claim his Chelek l'Olam Haba,

His share in the world to come.

He was ushered into paradise,

A beautiful,

Peaceful place of lush gardens in which the divine presence was palpably felt,

And led to a small,

Modest dwelling,

Which was to be his heavenly home.

It wasn't much,

But he accepted it with gratitude.

As he approached his dwelling,

He looked around and noticed that there was an immense palace next door.

Wow,

He thought,

That must be the abode of some great tzaddik,

Some great saint.

Actually,

Said his angelic escort,

That's the house of the brothel owner who used to be the object of your curses.

She happened to die the same day you did.

What,

Shouted the rabbi,

There must be some mistake.

I mean,

I realize I wasn't perfect,

I shouldn't have gotten so mad at her and been so negative,

But I was studying Torah all day long,

While she was running a brothel.

Actually,

Said the angel,

She studied much more Torah than you did.

Really,

How could that be?

All those days that you stared at her from across the river,

You seethed with anger and thought,

What a horrible person she is,

Building that brothel and seducing others into sin as well.

But when she stared back at you,

She was thinking,

What a sweet and holy soul that is.

Look at what a great mitzvah he has done,

Building that yeshiva and nourishing so many with the holiness of Torah.

Her holy thoughts of blessing toward you infiltrated the rest of her life,

Until she was constantly blessing you in her heart.

Whereas in your case,

Your destructive thoughts of anger and cursing infiltrated the rest of your life,

So even when you were studying Torah externally,

Internally,

You were filled with scorn.

To live an awakened life doesn't mean to do external practices only.

It means totally accept what comes to you with love,

Even and especially when it's not what you want.

Don't judge others.

Be thankful that you can give your gifts to the world and don't worry about what other people are doing.

The great Sage Hillel taught,

Al tadin et chavercha ad she tagia lim komo.

Do not judge others until you have reached their place.

In other words,

Don't ever judge others,

Because we can never reach their place.

We can never reach the place of someone else.

Everyone has their own experience,

And we don't know if we would act differently if we were in their shoes.

But if we're not conscious of our own minds,

We can end up doing just the opposite,

Begrudging what comes to us and blaming others or blaming the world for our perceived misfortune.

Like the story,

We might seem to be doing the right thing externally,

But in our minds we are creating the opposite.

What is the remedy?

The Torah says,

Shoftim v'shotrim titayn l'cha b'chol she'arecha.

Judges and officers you shall place in all your gates.

The Torah is talking about how to govern a society,

But on the level of consciousness,

This is a teaching about how to use our minds and guard the gates of thought.

The key is,

Rather than judging others,

We need to be judges of our own minds.

Not in a negative and judgmental way,

But in a conscious and intelligent way,

Discerning which thoughts are useless and will only create a personal hell,

And which thoughts are conducive to bringing about heaven on earth.

In fact,

At the deepest level,

Heaven is not something we have to create with positive thinking,

But is rather the awareness itself that watches the mind,

That watches the fullness of whatever arises.

We can access this heaven right now.

So we're talking about how we can become aware of our minds,

But in that activity of being discerning and becoming aware of our minds,

The most amazing part of that is not even the discernment,

But the awareness itself that's becoming aware.

It's very easy to miss that most basic level.

So shifting our focus from the normal activity of mind to becoming conscious of what is present in our experience,

The feeling of our bodies in space,

The sense of whatever it is we're sitting on,

If you're sitting down.

What is the flavor of the mood right now in your consciousness?

What is the experience of the emotional vibration that's present in the heart,

In the belly?

And most deeply,

What is the feeling of the consciousness itself?

What does consciousness feel like?

Does it have a shape?

Does it have form?

Or is it more elusive than that?

Where are you in that?

And can you begin to see that the you actually is that?

Is that spacious awakeness that can receive and accept whatever thoughts are arising?

Receive and accept whatever thoughts are coming and then receding.

Perceiving yourself as that open spaciousness and being that open spaciousness,

Can this moment be enough just to be this consciousness?

Is that not enough?

Can we arrive in this?

This is the object of our meditation at the deepest level available to us even before we start meditating.

All it takes is this shift to being aware of the awareness.

Being aware of ourselves as this awareness.

And a Kavanah,

A prayer,

May the intelligence that arises from this essence that we are,

This consciousness that we are,

Help us to discern the movement of our minds moment to moment and consciously choose the kinds of thoughts that will be blessings for ourselves and help us be blessings for others as well.

This is summarized so beautifully by Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi in this teaching,

Eizohi derech yeshara she yavor lo ha'adam.

What is the proper path that a person should choose for oneself?

Kol shehi tiferet le'oseha.

That which is beautiful and harmonious for oneself,

V'tiferet lo min ha'adam,

And also causes others to experience that beauty and harmony as well.

The more present we are,

The more conscious we are of our inner space,

The more others can sense that presence just by being in our presence.

And that's part of the magic of being together in community to practice is because we enhance the field,

We enhance the field of presence with each other by going into that together.

Reviews

Thank you for this meaningful and important talk. Many blessings to you.

An important lesson. A hard lesson. Especially in difficult times. But explained with such clarity. A lesson I strive to achieve. Today rabah 🙏